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Romain Grosjean wins first GP2 race in Valencia

Romain Grosjean took advantage of misfortune for the two Addax cars to take his second GP2 win of the season on the streets of Valencia

The DAMS driver won from third on the grid without having to pass another car, as both Addax drivers - Charles Pic and Giedo van der Garde - were removed from contention for him.

Pole-sitter Pic broke down on his reconnaissance lap to the grid, and his team only just had the car back in the pits and ready to go when the race got underway.

The Frenchman's team-mate van der Garde took up the reins to lead for the first 22 laps, before he had to come in to serve a drive-through penalty for a yellow flag infringement.

Prior to that, van der Garde had stretched his lead to more than five seconds following the pitstops, although Grosjean had just upped his pace to set the fastest lap of the race before the Dutchman came in.

Van der Garde rejoined fourth, and that quickly became third as he disposed of Racing Engineering's Dani Clos with relative ease. He then spent the remaining laps hunting down Davide Valsecchi's AirAsia car in second.

Valsecchi proved tougher than Clos in defence, and he resisted several attempts from van der Garde as the pair briefly got side-by-side on a handful of occasions. Eventually, the Italian locked his rear wheels at the end of the second long straight, and van der Garde was able to nip through on the exit to complete his recovery to second with just over a lap remaining.

Clos had closed on them during their scrap, but his pace fell away at the end and he had to fight furiously to keep Sam Bird (iSport) and Luiz Razia (AirAsia) at bay in the final few corners.

ART's Esteban Gutierrez recovered from an early race off which dropped him to 11th to get back into the points with seventh place, while Josef Kral grabbed eighth on the penultimate lap as Michael Herck slowed and fell to 10th.

Jules Bianchi's nightmare season continued as he crashed at the first corner after chopping across the front of Marcus Ericsson, sending both into the wall at high speed and bringing out the safety car.

Max Chilton had been on for solid points before his pace dropped off dramatically, forcing him to retire. Another frontrunner to fall by the wayside was Luca Filippi, who tagged the back of Clos as they scrapped over fourth place at half-distance.

Retirements:

Pos  Driver               Team                   Time/Gap
 1.  Romain Grosjean      DAMS                 58m19.400s
 2.  Giedo van der Garde  Addax                 + 15.481s
 3.  Davide Valsecchi     AirAsia               + 20.901s
 4.  Dani Clos            Racing Engineering    + 24.010s
 5.  Sam Bird             iSport                + 24.323s
 6.  Luiz Razia           AirAsia               + 24.495s
 7.  Esteban Gutierrez    ART                   + 48.097s
 8.  Josef Kral           Arden                 + 51.064s
 9.  Jolyon Palmer        Arden                 + 53.632s
10.  Michael Herck        Coloni                + 57.032s
11.  Julian Leal          Rapax                 + 58.041s
12.  Kevin Mirocha        Ocean                 + 58.567s
13.  Pal Varhaug          DAMS                + 1m06.416s
14.  Johnny Cecotto       Ocean               + 1m12.085s
15.  Rodolfo Gonzalez     Trident             + 1m20.090s
16.  Fairuz Fauzy         Super Nova          + 1m25.296s
17.  Stefano Coletti      Trident             + 1m44.986s
18.  Kevin Ceccon         Coloni                  + 1 lap

Retirements:

     Max Chilton          Carlin                  23 laps
     Christian Vietoris   Racing Engineering      15 laps
     Luca Filippi         Super Nova              14 laps
     Charles Pic          Addax                   13 laps
     Jules Bianchi        ART                      0 laps
     Marcus Ericsson      iSport                   0 laps
     Alvaro Parente       Carlin                   0 laps
     Fabio Leimer         Rapax                    0 laps

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